Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment Wire (Score 1) 5

I'm not sure if Wire has new management but I just recently learned they've gone fully open source, are working on federation, and are using an RFC-specified tree-based efficient group chat encryption algorithm. RCS is eventually meant to adopt the same algorithm.

Folks using Telegram Groups (which are unencrypted, actually) might have a look. Yeah, somebody needs to run a server if you don't want intelligence agencies to provide one for you.

I uninstalled Wire years ago when they wouldn't take privacy seriously (yeah, I filed a bug) but it seems like a second look is warranted.

Comment Re:Other developers.... (Score 2) 27

Would the $20 ONN sticks from Walmart work better for you?

I have an puck-style device of theirs which is just an Amtel SoC with GoogleTV Android on it. Probably doesn't get updates but then you don't let them have unfettered access to the Internet either.

I've sideloaded Jellyfin, SmarTube-Next, etc.

I used to have a half dozen Fire sticks and have removed all but one, in a kid's bedroom. They haven't banned Jellyfin ... yet... but aren't they dropping Android as well?

Comment Re:Are people this ignorant of basic online securi (Score 1) 79

Yes, but half the people have below-average intelligence.

We won't have a stable society if they're constantly scammed.

And I know some High-IQ people with no street smarts who got scammed by "Raj from Microsoft Support".

Really some dude from a trailer park might have a better BS detector, having lived a less coddled existence.

Comment Re: Way to blow your negotiating position by (Score 5, Insightful) 47

Yeah, but in actual war (like Ukraine is finding out), flexibility matters. There are absolutely cells of Ukrainian engineers 3D-printing parts as they respond to our evolving understanding of drone warfare with innovative solutions.

Moreover, standardization is a long recognized enabler of industrial warfare... good standards let militaries flexibly source parts and share equipment, simplifying logistics. Letting military contractors obstruct that is our corruption... it's strategical stupid for a military that wants to be effective.

Comment Re: typical billionaire (Score 1) 23

The goal is probably to bilk crypto investors from prosperous countries. While third world peoples are being exploited in some intangible sense, the main point is to use them to inflate the user count. It's bullshit because typically such users immediately cash out the meager compensation they were given for scanning their eyeball and cease any further usage of the coin.

Comment Re:With Science (Score 1) 94

Science? Really? There's a lot of soft-brained, unscientific and technophilic pseudo-religion in the article.

Let's work with the argument's load-bearing phrase, "exploration is an intrinsic part of the human spirit."

There are so many things to criticise in that single statement of bias. Suffice it to say there's a good case to be made that "provincial domesticity and tribalism are prevalent inherited traits in humans", without emotional appeals to a "spirit" not in evidence.

Comment Re: Missing Rust Language Specification (Score 1) 70

> Bruh. Apt already relies on Perl, which has no formal language specification. What nonsense is this?

You are right, which is why I don't think this is a huge deal.

Though perl5 compatibility back to c.2000 is pretty good.

Today's rust code most likely won't run in 2050 on modern compilers.

But perl4 code doesn't run well today either.

Yet nothing in trixie needs to run anything from buzz - so as long as everything works within a version or two it's hard to imagine anybody being negatively affected.

Comment Re:What will make up that lost capacity (Score 1) 88

I have a UPS package shipped Overnight/Saturday Delivery on Friday and it now appears to be on a truck near Chicago. It was originally scheduled to transit from South Dakota to New England.

New delivery date is Tuesday. I hope the sender gets his money back!

(I didn't need it that quickly but the sender was making good on a delivery date guarantee, at a loss of his profits).

Comment Re:Remains to be seen... (Score 2) 42

I have a floppy controller on order that doesn't know how to read disks; it just passes through magnetic field data to software which is supposed to be able to reconstruct the disk image.

Hopefully these tapes will be OK to read as long as somebody can build a magnetic read head of the correct type.

Maybe with ML there will be a reasonable chance of reconstructing faded regions. Old audio tape is still mostly fine, so fingers crossed.

BTW, what a great job these folks have!

Comment Re:And this will go on and on. Until? (Score 2) 134

> No need for all that. Either "Judgement is for the other side" or "Case dismissed." Clears the docket, and slows down these kinds of submissions until they're at least doublechecked.

Interesting. I think you've changed my mind about this.

Economic incentives are probably the way to go.

Comment Re:Rediscovering the wheel... (Score 1) 33

> Hopefully there are more relevant "science objectives" than this dead issue.

It's an exoteric story. Really they want funding to build rockets and this is a technology demonstrator.

But there is a theory that the asteroid belt is the former crust of Mars. More data on that would be interesting.

It's of course "widely discredited" but not with a scientific method or anything. Comparing isotope ratios would be fun someday.

Slashdot Top Deals

"If anything can go wrong, it will." -- Edsel Murphy

Working...